Quality vs Quantity
When I set out on my career as a hypnotherapist in the early 1990s, the idea of being a full-time hypnotherapist or making a career out of hypnosis seemed fool hardy to say the least.
In the UK in 1988 there were less than 70 hypnotherapy training providers this number increased to 130 by 1997. Today if you search google for hypnotherapy training UK you will get, 890, 000 results.
It seems that almost daily there is another new hypnotherapy training school’s being created, each teaching, supposedly new and better forms of hypnotherapy, created, with some wonderful names. Most, if not all are rehashed forms of hypnotherapy that have existed for years. Each of these training schools give certification on completing the training, beautiful certificates that mean absolutely nothing in the real world.
There is no government approved governing body for hypnotherapy in the UK. Anyone can call themselves a Hypnotherapist or Psychotherapist in the UK, with or without any training. Anyone can print and give diplomas to those they teach no matter how poor the training may be.
In 1995 I trained with International Association of Hypno Analysts I.A.H.A. (I have a diploma to prove it). A very important sounding Association, when actually the I.A.H.A was one man’s very outdated, version of hypnotherapy, taught in his house in Bournemouth.
In 1999 I founded The UK Hypnotherapy Training College (UKHTC) and the UK Hypnotherapy Association (UKHA). Again, a very important sounding college, when in fact it was yet again one man’s (mine) version of hypnotherapy taught in an office in Kent.
In 2008 The first Batchelor of Science in Clinical Hypnosis degree course in the UK was opened at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, London. I decided as this was a legitimate degree from a legitimate Established University, I would do the course. In 2011, I was awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science in Clinical Hypnosis with Honours. BSc (Hons). (I have a beautiful piece of paper to prove it). This course was so poor it was closed down. I could in five days teach you to be a more effective, efficient and competent Hypnotherapist, than anyone who had spent 3 years doing that BSc course.
I can hand on heart tell you that not one of the more than 30,000 clients I have helped has asked to see my qualifications.
Recently Hypnotherapy training has been going down the same road that NLP training (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and MLM (Multi, Level, Marketing). With NLP it went something like this. (Practitioner Training), (Master Practitioner training), (Trainers Training), (Trainers, Trainers, training). In MLM it’s, get two customers then start recruiting, recruiters to recruit recruiters.
Now we have schools of Hypnotherapy training students to become hypnotherapist, but before the student has started work as a Therapist, offering them training to become trainers in that school and form of hypnotherapy, hence we end up in the situation we now have in the UK and throughout the world with tens of thousands of hypnotherapy training schools, with less than 2% of students able to truly effectively help anyone or make a living as a hypnotherapist.
How do you sift the wheat from the chaff? Here is a suggestion (my opinion only), ask the person offering to train you, how many clients they have personally seen, and helped using the methods they are teaching’. If that number is in the 10s rather than 100s or 1000s find another trainer.
All of the above as I always say is just my opinion.
Have a wonderful Christmas.